Sarasota vs. Riverview: The names and games that shaped one of Florida's best football rivalries

The two combatants have a combined 3-11 record this season, so there won’t be any titles at stake Friday night at the Ram Bowl.

Only the championship of “Sarasota vs. Riverview 53.”

That’s plenty.

For the first time since 1980, the big game will be played without John Sprague pacing the Riverview sideline. The veteran coach, whose teams won 230 games in 30 seasons, retired in March.

The baton has officially been passed to first-year coach Todd Johnson, a former NFL player and star defensive back at Riverview (Class of ’98) – which means he’s already well-schooled regarding the Rams’ biggest rival.

But before you make the drive to Proctor and Lords for the 7:30 p.m. kickoff, here are some numbers and memories from 51 years of big plays, big hits and big tradition, in no particular order. We’ve split them into four “quarters.”

FIRST QUARTER

You probably already know that on the football field, Sarasota has won 26 times and Riverview has won 26 times.

That’s ON the field.

Sometime after the 1969 game, won 43-13 by the Sailors, the Florida High School Activities Association ruled that Sarasota had used ineligible players during that season. The Sailors were forced to forfeit four games, including their win over Riverview.

So officially, the score is Rams 27, Sailors 25.

Think of this as one long football game of a half-century and counting. From the first kickoff in 1960, Riverview did not lead at any juncture for 39 years, but has gradually increased its advantage since overtaking their rivals in ’99. By our count, the scoreboard now reads, “Riverview 941, Sarasota 889.”

Snipes ran for 1,512 yards and 18 touchdowns as a senior in 1980, earning a spot on the Class 4A All-State team. He had 153 yards in the Sailors’ 10-0 win over Riverview at the Ram Bowl.

Thirteen years later on the same field, Bane’s 133 yards led Riverview’s 320-yard ground attack, as the Rams breezed to a 37-15 triumph.

More on Ford later.

The head coaches in the first meeting, on Oct. 28, 1960, were Al Jeffrey (Sarasota) and Jim Mason (Riverview). The Sailors brought a 3-2 record into the historic matchup, while the winless Rams had been outscored 200-0 in their first five games.

Nonetheless, Jeffrey put the best possible face on the new “city championship.”

“Our boys are up for Riverview,” he told the Herald-Tribune. “They’ll have to be if we’re going to win.”

Sarasota won 18-0.

Keep in mind, this was 1960. Being a football player meant you played both offense and defense, at least at the high school level.

The first points in the first game were scored by Sarasota’s Adrian Garrett, on a 1-yard touchdown run off right tackle during the first quarter.

Garrett went on to a professional baseball career with four major-league teams (Cubs, Braves, Athletics and Angels), played three seasons in Japan and has managed or coached ever since. In 2011, he completed his ninth season in the Cincinnati Reds organization, all as the hitting coach for the Triple-A Louisville Bats.

His brother, Wayne, a 1965 Sarasota graduate, played third base as a rookie for the ’69 world champion New York Mets.

In the early days of the rivalry, the winning team received the Holm Stein, and the game’s most valuable player was given the Bill Canter Memorial Award.

SECOND QUARTER

Everyone who lived here in the 1960s or ’70s remembers that the big game was played at 11 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day from 1962-74. But did you know that only two of those 13 games – Riverview’s 10-7 victory in 1972 and Sarasota’s 30-12 rout in the last “Turkey Bowl” in ’74 – were played at the Ram Bowl?

Prior to that, the Rams and Sailors both called Ihrig Field home. Despite the late-morning kickoffs, the annual “Turkey Bowl” contests drew crowds as large as 10,000 and served as an epicenter of Sarasota society.

Riverview officials said that 8,083 tickets were sold for the ’72 game in their new stadium. A year later, the school’s principal (Dr. Ed Brown) lobbied unsuccessfully to make the Ram Bowl the permanent home of the annual showdown.

Riverview’s first victory in the series, 7-0 on Thanksgiving Day in 1963, came at a pivotal moment in American history. Just six days earlier, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

Within hours, both rivals canceled their scheduled games – Riverview at Naples, Fort Lauderdale Stranahan at Sarasota – though the Tampa Jefferson-Manatee and Southeast-Palmetto games were played that night.

For his part, Sarasota athletic director Gene Spangler announced that 300 additional tickets for the Turkey Bowl would be going on sale the following Monday. Those general admission tickets were priced at $1.25.

Sarasota outscored Riverview 266-142 in the Thanksgiving Day games and won eight of the 13 games, including seven of the first nine.

The Turkey Bowl tradition wasn’t abandoned by either side. It was ended when the Florida High School Activities Association changed its playoff structure and put a halt to all regular-season games played on Thanksgiving across the state.

Friday night’s game marks only the eighth time the schools have met before Nov. 1, and the first since 2005.

Most of the few remaining Thanksgiving games these days – such as the nation’s oldest continuous rivalry between Boston Latin and Boston English – are played in the Northeast. But the old-timers on either sideline Friday night will tell you this game is a tailor-made appetizer for turkey.

Riverview won 10 straight games from 1993-2002, the longest streak by either team in the series. Torry Johnson passed for 313 yards and four TDs in a 41-3 runaway in 1996, and two years later, Courtney Watson ran for 211 yards and three TDs in a 27-7 win.

Sarasota’s longest winning streaks are four (1967-70 and 1986-89).

THIRD QUARTER

Legendary Sarasota coachCharlie Cleland had a ironclad rule against “hotdog” tactics. But in 1974, senior Bo Smith was granted a pardon after dashing 48 yards for the Sailors’ third touchdown – then joyously throwing the football into the stands – during a 30-12 victory before an estimated 12,000 at the Ram Bowl.

An infuriated Cleland was preparing to chew out Smith when assistant coach Tom Whitehurst accepted the blame. Seems Whitehurst had told Smith, half in jest, to toss the ball to the fans if he broke loose for a long touchdown. The third-quarter TD broke open what had been a 16-12 battle in the final Turkey Bowl contest.

“OK, Bo, you got a free one that time,” Cleland told him. “But the next time…”

Smith, who carried 15 times for 101 yards, was playing in his final game for Sarasota.

The memorable moments and players who created them can fill more than one scrapbook.

One that stands out is the game-winning, 35-yard field goal by Riverview’s Frank Goddard, Jr., in the Rams’ 19-16 victory on Nov. 25, 1971, the first game in the 12-year-old rivalry decided by less than a touchdown.

That game matched a 7-2 Sarasota team against an 8-1 Riverview squad for the South Florida Conference championship. Sarasota senior Jimmy Dubose carried 20 times for 133 yards, scoring on a 4-yard run to cap the Sailors’ comeback from a 16-0 deficit.

Ten years to the day after JFK’s assassination, on Nov. 22, 1973, quarterback Larry Berkery led Riverview on second-half touchdown drives of 74 and 66 yards in a come-from-behind, 22-21 win.

Sarasota’s Shawn Whitfield scored 20 of the Sailors’ 43 points on runs of 10, 48 and 68 yards in the Sailors’ 43-20 romp in 1989, adding a two-point conversion for good measure. Three years later, the Sailors rallied from a 14-point deficit to win 20-17, when Riverview missed two field goals in the final 4:23.

Then there was Mike Ford.

He has seen this game from both sidelines – with the Rams as a sophomore on Nov. 1, 2002, then for the next two seasons as a Sailor (Sept. 19, 2003 and Sept. 17, 2004).

Whichever uniform he chose, Ford usually won. In ’02, he ran for 152 yards and three scores in Riverview’s 20-7 triumph at Ihrig Field. In ’03, making his Sarasota debut after transferring, he had 120 yards and two more TDs in the Sailors’ 37-15 victory.

As a senior in ’04, his 264 yards and two TDs led a 27-26 Sarasota win, after the Sailors had trailed by 11 in the fourth quarter.

His totals in the three regular-season games: 536 yards and seven touchdowns.

Only one problem. The two rivals met again in the Class 5A-Region 3 championship game on Nov. 26, 2004 at Ihrig Field. Riverview ended Ford’s prep career, holding him to 140 yards, and C.J. Hamilton’s 87-yard TD run clinched the Rams’ dominating 23-0 victory, the only shutout by either team since 1981.

It remains the only playoff game between the two rivals – and their only post-Thanksgiving matchup after the 1974 season. Ford remains 3-1 in the big game. Forever.

FOURTH QUARTER

No recollection of the 52 Sarasota-Riverview games on any level would be complete without paying homage to the two men who have impacted more of them than anyone.

Cleland compiled a 128-72-7 record during a 20-year reign as Sarasota’s head coach (he got the job on Jan. 17, 1964, but arrived here in 1957). His teams were 12-8 against Riverview, winning 32-0 in 1968 and losing 47-3 eight years later. Cleland’s Sailors had only three losing seasons (1966, ’72 and ’82).

On May 15, 2003, the Sarasota County School Board officially renamed the Sailors’ home. It is now known as “Cleland Stadium at Ihrig Field.”

Three years before Cleland’s retirement in 1984, Dr. Ed Brown brought Sprague to Riverview from Rockdale County in Conyers, Ga. In the only three head-to-head matchups between Cleland and Sprague, the Rams won twice; Troy Butler’s 157 rushing yards gave Sprague a 33-14 nod in the rubber game (Nov. 18, 1983).

Sprague’s record over 30 seasons was 230-98. His teams were 19-12 against Sarasota, including the 10-game win streak from 1993-02.

Coincidentally, both men announced their football coaching retirements on March 15 – Cleland in 1984 and Sprague in 2011.

It is the saddest day on the sporting calendar in Sarasota.

Except Thanksgiving.

Sources: Archives of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and Sarasota Journal.

Last modified: October 26, 2011
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